Yeah, I get the same sense. While DaveScot seems malevolent, and Dembski a wolf fleecing the sheep, Casey just seems like a poor dumb guy who doesn't know any better. When I first started mocking him, he emailed me asking why in the world I thought his Intelligent Design club was religious in nature. Despite the fact that he was a minister, despite the fact you had to be a christian to be an officer in his club, despite every ID advocate being on record at some point saying a variant of "Of course ID is really just christianity in disguise", Casey really didn't seem to understand that it wasn't science. He seemed to really think he was doing science. After all, it sure sounded like science.

I've noticed a real desire on the part of reasonable people for science to find God (their version). After all, people know that science does really neat stuff and learns a lot, investigates nearly everything, produces useful technology, etc. And they know that God (their version) is perfectly real, clear and present. So WHY can't science find Him?

This makes for an audience very willing and eager to believe a claim that science HAS found God (their version). Combine this with the fact that for the most part, this audience has little clue what science is or how it works. There's a lot of force available in telling people what they dearly wish to hear, who aren't equipped to evaluate these claims.

I suspect Casey feels as most such Believers do, that if ordinary atheistic science can do such wonderful stuff, imagine what full-buckwheat Christian science can do! After all, Christian scientists have TheBigGuy in their hearts, leading them in the right direction and telling them the answers.

It has come to my attention that some of our best informed ID supporters don’t believe politics are important to winning and that science education is the key. Now I dearly love science but without politics providing us a level playing field our arguments from math and science are doomed to being censored.(more…)Filed under: Education, Legal, Courts, Laws, Constitution — DaveScot @ 14 pmComments (0)

Yeah, that's the problem. IDers have focused too much on science, not enough on PR.

stevestory wrote:From Uncommon Pissant, an example of what happens when people use big words to sound all smart-like.

Red Reader regularly makes a fool of himself on UD. My favorite example is his response to John Davison's "Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis". Apparently the word "Evolutionary" set Red off like Pavlov's bell:

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Red Reader wrote:Just a desperate “big idea” for funding and publicity which necessarily includes enough bogus obfuscation to brand those who oppose or even question it as “unscientific”.

After a few other comments were posted, Red realized he was on the "wrong" side of the issue. He sheepishly retracted his criticism:

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Red Reader wrote:If I may, I would like to apologize to Dr. Davison for my ill considered and intemperate remark. It is obvious that Prof. Davison has put a lot of thought into his hypothesis. I hate to say it but it’s true: I engaged my opinion before I put my brain in gear.

I love it when ID supporters have to be told what the "correct" position is. Of course it's even worse when your opponents know your position better than you do. I once had to tell Josh Bozeman to "stay on your own side of the argument!" when he picked the "wrong" side.

Another good Red Reader story. He criticized me once for not agreeing often enough with ID supporters:

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Red Reader wrote:I see Dave, Josh, Pav (in the this post) continously making good points–logical, fair, reasoned.But the contrarian never acceeds a single point.Why is this? The law of averages suggests that between them–Dave, Josh & Pav (not to mention numerous others in different threads)–they would by complete accident make at least one statement in three (more or less) that the contrarian could agree with.

Apart from the bizarre probabilistic reasoning and the oxymoronic idea of Josh Bozeman making a "logical, fair, reasoned" point, the fact was that I did agree with ID supporters (including DaveScot -- forgive me) when they said something sensible. I even defended Bill Dembski on a couple of occasions when he was unfairly attacked.

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I wrote to Red:Perhaps you can show me the many comments in which you agree with Darwinians, so I’ll have an example to follow.

Needless to say, no such examples were forthcoming.

--------------And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

Of course it's even worse when your opponents know your position better than you do. I once had to tell Josh Bozeman to "stay on your own side of the argument!" when he picked the "wrong" side.

Josh does get confused easily.

How long did this go on for before you were banned?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

In the strangest journalism I have ever seen....DaveScot is now linking to the forum that is discussing the site that DaveScot is linking to the forum from?!?!?

I love DaveScot. Honestly.

Sorry if some of you dont know me....I havent really posted frequently.

William Dembski originally banned me....and told everyone on the blog that he had done so. I almost felt honored. Then DaveScot decided to try to insult me after I was banned? That was honestly the lowest I have ever seen anyone sink. Insulting someone without actually allowing them to reply.

Apparently at some point I was allowed to reregister my screen-name...so I did. I was then banned for answering...with completely correct information...a question that DaveScot had asked. I was promptly banned again.

Dave....no one cares that you ban people. No one cares that you decide to moderate. People are upset with you, and Bill because you guys seem to do it with only a vague set of guidelines....how boring is it when everyone in your little world agrees with you?

DaveScot is hilarious, especially when he tries to be scary. He hunts around the internet trying to find dirt on people, with nothing else to do, and then bans them. Mr. Christopher and I both got banned for the same reason. (Mine still logs in, but I tried saying a couple things and they were deleted) Mine was this essay:Proves my pointAfter trackbacks lead him to my post, he then proves my point by un-linking the trackbacks on UD to my blog. His reason given was so that I couldn't plug my blog on - read: HIS - , like I would want the 20 people in the world that DaveScot and Bill Dembski haven't banned from their blog commenting on mine anyway!

I think the point made earlier about Dembski wanting to make his whole blog a joke to cover up his mis-statements and "street theater" may fit the bill. No pun intended.

What I think is interesting is the TIME that DaveScot takes to go online with his modem and download these pages bit by bit to see what people are saying about him. And B.Dembski calls evolution proponents obsessive.

Hello Dave, glad to see you are spending so much time on everyone here. Won't you provide another link directing people to places that don't ban people for making truthful statements about you? The fact is, people on "YOUR" own blog notice how you are the embodiment of a flaming troll, and you can't hide it.

While I was still on the blog, I was trying to understand what some of their positions were on apes->humans. Although DaveScot emailed me to warn me that he could *smell* that I was a troll, the only reason why I wanted to try posting on the blog was to get answers to the question above. They kept repeating that ID was compatible with common descent with apes as well as uncommon descent, that was not what I was asking.

One person did attempt to answer me, he said that he believed that humans and apes did not descend from a common ancestor, I asked him what evidence, since ID is compatible with both scenarios, lead him to that conclusion. No biochemical evidence, just a hand wave at the complexities of humans. I made sure to be polite, and thanked him for responding. So the one response I got was an empty box with no evidence.

Some IDer, who himself keeps getting deleted at Uncommon Pissant, is begging DaveScot to stop being such a censor:

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Hey Dave, I haven’t seen what they’re saying and don’t intend to, but as someone who’s pretty pro ID, I would appreciate a rethink of your moderation here. Perhaps just leaving it all to someone else would be best. The signal to noise ratio here has changed since you’ve been moderating, and I’m sorta tiring hearing about you all the time and seeing others complain about your moderation, or you telling us they are.

The bottom line is that while the math and science in support of guided non-Darwinian evolution is extraordinary, compelling, and interesting to a fault

No comment, although I'm interested to see if the next edition of Pandas replaces intelligent design with 'guided non-Darwinian evolution'.

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Someone needs to slap these clergy upside the head and tell them they don’t have to compromise their faith in God to accommodate some godless story of evolution foisted upon us by the likes of Richard Dawkins or the National Academy of Atheist Sciences.

Not only have they banned me from commenting at “After The Bar Closes” but they banned my IP address from even READING the forum. Yes Virginia, you heard right. These paranoid censoring fascists don’t even want me to read what they’re saying no less reply to it. They make my moderation policy look like a paragon of tolerance in comparison.

Now...for a guy who is supposed to be a blog moderator (if that is what you call that particular site)...he should know that when you block an IP address, it prevents any connection between the server and the blocked IP.

Since DaveScot's linking here at the moment, here's a brief statement to the ID folk who'll be wandering over:

You're welcome to discuss things here. Panda's Thumb, and After the Bar Closes, are run by scientists who believe in open discussion. As long as you aren't a raging jerk for months on end (which DaveScot was) you won't be warned or banned. Very few people have been banned here--fewer than DaveScot censored last week. I understand it's so bad over there that he's even banning ID supporters who don't agree exactly with him, like Josh Bozeman. We can all agree that since he's been moderating, DaveScot has made the blog about himself and how rigorous he is at purging the site of any alternative ideas. This trainwreck isn't going to last forever, and until it changes, you can discuss things here, just keep it civil.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Boy, JAD's really got some reading comprehension problems, in evidence over at UncommonPissant:

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#

stevestory is now welcoming all the ID people back to PT ….he says. I want a personal guaranteed invitation steve baby, complete with an apology for the hideous way you hypocrites have treated an Emeritus Professor of Biology and his sources, some of the finest minds of two centuries. Put your money where your mouth is. Fat chance.

War, God help me, I love it so!

Comment by John Davison — January 23, 2006 @ 97 am

What a loon. The informed observer will note that civil ID supporters, like Salvador Cordova and Carol Clouser, have been posting at Panda's Thumb and After the Bar Closes for almost 2 years now, almost without incident. I didn't welcome back those ID supporters, because they never left. A tiny handful of hysterical and rude ID supporters were banned, but only after months of warnings.

Enjoy the reign of DaveScot, JAD, because it's not long for this earth.

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I don’t care who does the moderating. I’m just grateful not to be banned for a change. So if Dave decides to step down and I hope he won’t, I also hope Bill Dembski is very careful about who replaces him. I am getting sick and tired of being treated like garbage every where I go.

I don’t care who does the moderating. I’m just grateful not to be banned for a change. So if Dave decides to step down and I hope he won’t, I also hope Bill Dembski is very careful about who replaces him. I am getting sick and tired of being treated like garbage every where I go.

I have to admit, as distateful as Davison is, that was sort of a poignant statement, not least because he shows absolutlely no comprehension whatsoever of why he engenders this reaction everywhere he goes.

Let this be a cautionary lesson: don't let yourself spend your retirement years like this, an angry charmless crank posting to blogs and alienating everyone.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Is somebody going to tell him that Flew is a deist, not a christian, and that he said he'd been misled by a christian?

If they do, DaveScot will nix the comment.

Do we have any volunteers?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Since DaveScot's linking here at the moment, here's a brief statement to the ID folk who'll be wandering over:

You're welcome to discuss things here.

But will Davescot then ban them from posting at UD?

Anyone want to bet how long it'll be before that place consists of DaveScot talking to himself, with even the IDers having been banned?

--------------Fundamentalism in a nutshell:"There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don't know that much about it does not bother me in the least."

Anyone from Dembski's uncommodescent creationist blog should note that Dave Scott will ban you from there if you post anything here or on PT that he doesn't like.

And whatever you do stay away from calling Dembski a theologian or pointing out there is no science whatsoever being taught or researched at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Don't discuss the idiotic religious propaganda Dembski teacher there.

And I suggest you avoid mentioning Behe hasn't come up with any new ideas in over 10 years. Nor has he provided any new evidence for "his" irreducible complexity notion. And I wouldn't say a word about the fact that Behe published his book on irreducible complexity back in 1996 but there is still not a single peer reviewed scientific paper that supports it. Yep, 10 years laters and it still lacks any scientific meat.

And I'd avoid talking about Dembski's lack of published peer reviewed scientific articles. Dave won't like that. Your best bet it to avoid any suggestion that Behe is a quack and Dembksi is a garden variety Christian Opportunist. Mr Scott fancies Dembski as a legitimate "theorist/scientist" so let's not shatter his fantasy.

ps. Dave Scott seems to be whining about his inability to read posts here. If Mr Scott is jonesing that bad for a ATBC shot in the arm, will someone tell the technically challenged Mr Scott to Google "anonymous proxy"?

They are trying to be like those exclusive night clubs that keep everyone outside with a velvet rope. That way, everyone wants to get in because if you do manage to get in and appease the "bouncer" (DS in this case) then you get to say that you are part of the select few.